MORGANTOWN — After a two-game road trip into the Lone Star state revealed that the WVU men’s basketball team was no better than 46 points from competing with both Texas and Baylor, Bob Huggins’ assessment was more about looking ahead.
After falling 79-67 to the ninth-ranked Bears on Monday, Huggins looked around his locker room and saw more than defeat.
There sat point guard Kedrian Johnson with a busted-up eye that had nearly swollen shut after he banged heads with Baylor guard Adam Flagler.
Emmitt Matthews Jr. had given about all he could give in suddenly finding an offensive surge at a time when there was little help to go around him.
“Our guys were tired,” Huggins began. “Kedy’s playing with an eye that was basically swollen shut. Emmitt was dead tired. He basically played 40 minutes. I tried to get Tre (Mitchell) out to give him a break.”
Disappointment filled the room, as a long season’s worth of work was now to a point of no return. There was no way to sugarcoat what had just transpired in the two losses, no way they wouldn’t be added on to the 0-5 start the Mountaineers (15-11, 4-9) had in Big 12 play to start the conference season.
A year after finishing dead last in the Big 12, WVU still finds itself closer to the bottom of the league standings than the top.
Yet, as Huggins told the story, this was not a time for his players to be reminded of opportunities missed.
“We just sat in there and talked,” Huggins said. “I said, ‘Fellas, let’s be honest about this whole deal.’ We’ve got four conference wins and we’ve got two at home coming up. We could get to six winning two at home.”
Huggins’ message was there was still a path open for the Mountaineers to reach the NCAA tournament, yet as he got deeper into that message it became borderline overly optimistic.
“Then we go on the road to Kansas and (Iowa State), which we could win,” Huggins continued. “We haven’t won a whole lot at Kansas, but we can win there.”
In it’s 11th season in the Big 12, WVU has never won at Allen Fieldhouse. It’s last two trips saw Kansas win by an average of 20 points per game.
“It’s far from being over,” Huggins said. “There’s a lot out there for us, but we can’t not do what we’ve practiced doing.”
Even with the two recent frustrating road losses — WVU is now 2-7 in true road games this season — the Mountaineers are still projected as a No. 10 seed by ESPN in the NCAA tournament.
What the two losses have done, though, is make Saturday’s and then Monday’s home games against Texas Tech and Oklahoma State must wins.
The margin of error now sits at zero for the Mountaineers, and the NCAA selection committee isn’t going to care a whole lot about tired legs, swollen eyes, shooting slumps or any other deficiencies.
WVU’s strength of schedule is already baked in for the most part, but it’s going to take a lot more than simply playing tough opponents.
It’s got to win, too, and if WVU feels 18 wins in the regular season is enough to keep it on course for the NCAAs, then the Mountaineers have no room to lose at home for the rest of the season.
“We have to play for 40 minutes,” is the way WVU guard Joe Toussaint out it. “It’s the hardest league in the country, You can’t play for 20. You can’t play for 15. You can’t play for 35, you’ve got to play for the whole 40.”
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